


Flip A Coin

by bomberqueen17



Series: Two-Body Problem [8]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Courage, Episode Tag, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-14
Updated: 2014-03-14
Packaged: 2018-01-15 15:54:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1310551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bomberqueen17/pseuds/bomberqueen17
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Picks up after New Friends. Episode Tag to Progeny, the one where the team was all interrogated by Replicators via hallucinations of possible scenarios to study their responses.<br/>As often seemed to happen in SGA, there was little attention ever paid to the psychological ramifications of these people having lived through incredibly traumatic things they believed were true at the time. Just because the wounds heal immediately and it turns out to have not been real doesn't mean someone wasn't tortured! Jeez.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flip A Coin

Rodney and Teyla were already sitting at the table. John put his tray down next to Rodney’s, and sat down. “Hey,” he said. 

Rodney looked over. He looked tired, haggard and a bit bleary. “Hey yourself,” he said. 

Teyla leaned forward. “Hey is for horses,” she said with great solemnity. She had a bit of a weakness for Earth puns. Someone must have taught her that one recently; she had the air of satisfaction that came with having waited quite a while for the perfect opportunity to use a zinger.

“I sort of can’t believe you,” Rodney said, giving her a side eye.

“Did I not say it correctly?” she asked. 

“You said it fine,” John said. “Did you all finish making your reports to Elizabeth?” He’d decided they all needed to make detailed individual reports of the things they’d experienced during the Replicator interrogation, to try to get a handle on what the Replicators knew about them now. He’d been almost ashamed of how much information he’d given them, down to his own self-sacrificing tendencies. But it was easy, in hindsight, to berate himself about being gullible. He knew that if there had been any way to know it wasn’t real, either Ronon or Teyla would have picked up on it. They were both observant, that was what he kept them around for.

OK, that was a gross understatement, but when he’d said it to Elizabeth it had gotten a laugh, at least. She’d looked like she could use a laugh. 

“Yes,” Rodney said, and shuddered.

John gave him a concerned look. “What? That bad?”

“I told you my interrogation was almost all torture,” Rodney said. “And I know it turned out not to be real, but it was really upsetting.”

John nodded, looked down at his tray, and leaned over to bump his shoulder against Rodney’s. “I know,” he said. “Sorry. I wouldn’t’ve made you talk about it if I didn’t think it was important.”

Rodney’s frown eased a little. “I know,” he said. He glanced over almost shyly. “Yours sounded like it was actually kind of nice, though. We escaped.”

John grimaced. “Yeah,” he said, “but then we got back to Atlantis and pretty much immediately got attacked by about twenty hive ships.”

“Oh,” Rodney said. Teyla made a face. 

“So we cloaked,” John said, “but it was too late, and they hit our shield generators before we could switch back, so… Sitting ducks.”

“Yeah,” Rodney said, and his expression turned fretful. “I gotta figure out how to make that transition faster. It’s just not… They should be able to be simultaneous.”

“Yeah,” John said. He shrugged. 

“What did we do?” Teyla asked. “Did we evacuate? In your scenario.”

“Yeah,” John said. “Through the Stargate to Earth. But it was kind of, I don’t think a lot of people made it.”

“Did I?” Rodney asked. 

“Yeah,” John said.

“Did you?” Rodney followed up.

John looked away. “No,” he said. “I, um, no.”

“Oh dear,” Teyla said.

“I stayed back to trigger the self-destruct,” John said. 

“Of course you did.” Rodney shook his head, looking disgusted.

“Someone had to,” John said, hurt spiking behind his breastbone. “You offered to do it.”

“I did?” Rodney looked startled at that. 

“Offered to flip a coin for it,” John said. 

Rodney’s expression shifted from shock to something akin to shy pleasure. “Really,” he said. “Your subconscious thinks I’m that brave.”

John couldn’t help but grin fondly at him for that. “My subconscious _knows_ it,” he said. 

 


End file.
